Missouri Course Redesign Initiative
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Course Title: Chemistry I
Contact: Klaus Woelk
Missouri University of Science and Technology (S&T) will redesign Chem 1, the first course in a sequence of two general-chemistry courses, with an annual enrollment currently exceeding 1,000 students. The targeted course provides general-chemistry education to both major and non-major students. For more than 75% of S&T’s students, Chem 1 is a required four-credit lecture and recitation course in which they typically enroll during their freshman year. This course generates the most student credit hours and Chem 1 is taught in four lecture and 32 recitation sections in the fall and two lecture and 12 recitation sections in the spring. Chem 1 does not include a laboratory portion. (The lab course is taught separately and will not be part of this redesign effort.)
The redesign will address the following academic issues: 1) Incoming students have extremely different backgrounds in chemistry. Typically, at least 10% of the students never had chemistry before, whereas 20% were enrolled in AP high-school courses or college-level introductory chemistry. 2) Students often lack successful learning strategies and resist adjusting their study skills as they transition from high school to university. 3) Student success (i.e., achieving high grades) too much relies on, or may be achieved by, rote memorization rather than developing conceptual thinking and problem-solving skills. 4) Student engagement in recitation classes is inconsistent and often inefficient. Recitations are often provided as another lecture in a smaller classroom setting but without encouraging student engagement or applying active-learning strategies. 5) Despite weekly meetings to adjust efforts and timelines, a considerable duplication of effort takes place when multiple instructors individually compile lecture notes, PowerPoint slides and clicker questions. 6) The chemistry department lost several faculty positions due to budget cuts and hiring freezes. As a consequence, 200- and 300-level courses are currently taught combined as one course. This practice sacrifices the quality of upper-level education and prevents students from taking 300-level courses as electives if they were previously enrolled in the 200-level course.
The redesigned chemistry course will use the Buffet Model and offer a variety of techniques for learning chemical-science principles and concepts. Students will be given the option to participate face-to-face or synchronously from a remote location. In-class assessment and feedback requests by clicker questions will be augmented with online response requests by ResponseWare of Turning Technologies. Other buffet options will offer access to videotaped lectures with integrated assessments similar to the clicker questions. Recitations will be replaced with collaborative learning centers of active-learning and problem-solving activities. Computer-based tutorials common homework assignments and exams that are mandatory for all students will be offered using Pearson’s MasteringChemistry. To ensure engagement in the buffet, students will be required to develop a learning strategy and discuss a study plan with TAs or instructors. At regular intervals, this strategy may be adjusted. Elective modules or activities will be offered to focus on extra-credit activities particularly designed for engineering or other physical-science disciplines.
The redesigned Chem 1 course will give students the opportunity to select from a wide pool of instructional materials and strategies to match their own learning characteristics and needs. This built-in flexibility will allow students to prepare effectively for challenges in subsequent courses. It will encourage active learning over memorization and help individualize study plans in a large-enrollment basic science course. It will better serve the needs of diverse learners and is intended to attract and retain more student members particularly of underrepresented minorities, first-generation college students, and students with different science or study-skill backgrounds. The modular online exercises will allow students to reinforce their conceptual understanding and take control of their progress, enhancing student satisfaction and student success.
During the pilot phase, one instructor will be in charge of two Chem 1 sections, one taught in the traditional fashion and one as a redesigned course. The major assessment dataset will be generated by the final exam, although four common intermediate exams will be used to track student performance throughout the semester. To test the homogeneity of the two groups, a prior-knowledge test based on high-school-level chemistry problems will be administered at the beginning of the semester. Similar datasets will be generated and compared after the full implementation of the redesigned course.
Five of the 19 tenured or tenure-track faculty members in chemistry are currently involved in general-chemistry education. They are joined by one non-tenure-track lecturer, one adjunct faculty, up to 10 TAs and six peer learning assistants. The course redesign will provide noticeable cost savings by reducing the number of instructors needed to teach the course. This reduction will be achieved mainly by increasing the section size from 200 to 400 students, reducing the number of sections offered annually from six to three, and transferring some student learning experiences online. These actions will reduce the cost-per-student by 19%, from $150 to $122. The chemistry department is in the process of hiring a non-tenure-track teaching professor whose primary responsibilities will be general-chemistry education and coordination. For the S&T chemistry department, the greatest saving and structural improvement achieved with this redesign is releasing professors from their general chemistry teaching duties and allowing them to offer a more varied and improved curriculum for upper-level undergraduate and graduate instruction.
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